Would you Buy a Hybrid Car?

I would – in the right circumstances. With a family of 4 (soon to be 5), a Toyota Prius or a Honda Insight aren’t really options for us. The SUVs that could accommodate our family are out of our price range. For example, the Toyota Highlander Hybrid runs about $10,000 more than the non-hybrid. The Chevy Tahoe hybrid is $13,000 more, and the GMC Yukon hybrid is $12,000 more than its non-hybrid counterpart. More importantly, I couldn’t find one mini-van, which is what fits our needs the best, in a hybrid version.

What is interesting is that recent review of hybrid registrations by Polk has shown that only 35% of hybrid owners are replacing their hybrid cars with new hybrids. If you factor out Toyota Prius owners, who show the highest brand loyalty, that number drops to only 25%.

You can make a lot of assumptions with this statistic. The cost differential could take too long to make up. Previous hybrid owners could be turning to electric or natural gas cars. Maybe the recent improvements to fuel efficiency in vehicles are more appealing than paying the extra costs related to hybrid cars.

Whatever the reasons, the number of hybrids being purchased is declining. I find this disheartening. I had assumed that as the popularity of hybrids increase, the costs would drop for these vehicles. There would be more hybrid options, and they would become more main stream, thus reducing our dependency on gasoline as a nation. It doesn’t look like this is what is happening. Hopefully, automobile makers will continue to inject some ingenuity in car design to make even further advancements in fuel efficiency to help the average consumer like me.